How To Achieve Your Goals Using the SMART Goal System

June 1, 2017

Whether you are an employee or the owner of your own small business, you have goals. Are they SMART goals? Possibly not just yet but this article’s purpose is to help you to turn your aspirations into reality using the SMART goal system.

Think about what you want from life, both short term and long term:

You may want to spend more time with your family, or

You may want to manage your department or transfer to a new department within your company, or

You may want your weekends and evenings back (this one is my current goal!!), or

You may want to increase your profit by 30%

These goals can be business orientated or personal aspirations. You may not have defined what you want to achieve in the next month, the next year or in five year’s time just yet. But if you don’t take a minute right now to think about this, when will you?

The Problem

Most of us have a vague idea of what we’d like to achieve, but life has a way of pulling us into the day to day living and if you don’t make time to define your goals and plan your strategy, you can’t achieve them. It’s like driving to a destination without a map (and no app!), you will never get there if you don’t know where you’re going.

To set a specific goal, you must answer the following 5 “W” questions:

What: What do I want to accomplish?

Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

Who: Who is involved?

Where: Identify a location.

Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

MEASURABLE

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as:

How much?

How many?

How will I know when it is accomplished?

ATTAINABLE

Set realistic goals that you are able to achieve but which will stretch you. It is by pushing yourself that you will attain your goals. To set an attainable goal you must answer the “H” question:

How: How can the goal be accomplished?

RELEVANT

To be relevant, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. Look towards tying your goal in with your mission or vision statement. Your goal needs to be important to you and relevant to your ultimate business vision.

TIME FRAME

A goal should be grounded within a time frame. A goal must have a target date. Commitment to deadlines helps teams to focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. Goals without deadlines or schedules for completion tend to be overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organisation. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. To set a timely goal you must answer the sixth “W” question:

When: Establish a time frame.

Examples of SMART goals

Poor Goal: Reduce customer complaints in service department

SMART Goal: Design and implement new customer complaint procedure in service department to reduce complaints from 30% to 5% of total business by 1 September 2014.

Poor Goal: Start new blog for business

SMART Goal: To achieve an increase in repeat business, start new blog site to be posted to once per week highlighting benefits of our product. All customers to be emailed an RSS feed link with a monthly newsletter sent out highlighting posts for that month. Blog to be established in one month with a newsletter and email to go out at the end of month two.

Outline your project and show how it aligns with your goal, business vision and mission.

Create the strategy, scope and rationale for your project.

Break your goal down into milestones and then into achievable tasks.

Set a timeline for each milestone and task.

Identify resources needed to complete the project.

4.Measure.

When the timeframe is up, measure how you did. Did you achieve your SMART goal? If so, onwards and upwards … it’s time to set your next goal. You should always have a SMART goal you are working at achieving and the adventurous of you can now look at defining your short, medium and long term goals.

If you haven’t met your goal, worry not. Look at what you did achieve, was your goal realistic? Identify why you couldn’t meet your goal and redefine it with a new timeframe and criteria. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Rework and retry!! If you need a partner in crime, email me … I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in setting and achieving my own SMART goals and can work with you to help make your goals achievable.